Brandon

Gray is 4 years on mlbtraderumors. I went with that contract cause is allows Twins to sign more pitchers. Signing Stroman is 2nd choice but will we be able to afford more pitching. I think signing Stroman would require more pitching be acquired by trade.

I m indifferent. I always thought if a bench coach as someone who is a utility player type of coach. Can pitch in a lot of roles and is also there to help strategize. This type of coach can have a different type of personality but isnt necessarily required. I think other coaches can be that too.

Interesting trade but I think one of the starters we get will be short term. If you acquire 2 long term starters and we sign 2 long term starters and we have Ober and Ryan and 5 more starters in AA and AAA we will want some turnover to low cost options. What do you think? Ir will we trade several of our pitching prospects instead?

I do want to add that with so many teams with so much money available to spend, I think the higher end of the FA market will get expensive. Even the 2nd tier will get more than would otherwise. just my opinion.

Here is my first stab at this, I just did another updated one with updated info.

I did this when it first came out. but with more information heading into the offseason I changed things around. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yAVU-C2u6hY40oiAI3cGh1eEU82GHYJXfDORGJxnERY/edit?usp=sharing I originally had us signing Taylor to be our SS. But with his name becoming more front and center. I also have read the Twins are willing to consider bringing back Simmons and he was a gold glove caliber SS. So I brought him back at a base of 8.00 million. Galvis or Villar could go here too since this is a stop gap. I just think that we already know Simmons and he is a defensive specialist. I do think he can be an 80 to 90 OPS hitter again. I also brought back Cruz in this scenario but at 10 million 1 year deal. I did that for nostalgia more than anything otherwise I am open to the Rosario experience again at 7-8 million I also considered that a short term deal would be better. As Martin will be ready to step into the equation as is Miranda. and if Larnarch or Rooker start hitting overall then we will have an overabundance of bats....but fo rnow we have a slight shortage. Most importantly I signed Buxton to an extension. an 8 year 80 million guarantee with incentives totaling another 120 million if all are reached. (Don't ask me to explain the incentives I haven't fully made them up yet but I feel the ability to make 25 million per season seems realistic. on the bench I brought in the rookies Rooker and Gordon though Larnarch could be there too. For the pen. I kept the pen from last year though added Yates on an incentive laded contract. I would just do nothing and keep Jax in the pen. But i love the potential of Yates if he is able to come back from whatever injury ended his season early last season. In the rotation I resigned Pineda to a 2 year 22 million contract. I also signed Matz to a 3 year 42 million deal. (Since Gray wasn't offered a QO I would do a 4 year 15 million deal for him if he would take it). Other options include Smyly, Desclafani, Duffy, Note: Desclafani and Gray were not offered a QO. so no draft picks attached to them. We need one more starter. I signed Fiers. He is coming off of some injury I do not know what it is. I am assuming he is ready to go opening day. At his age we can move him to the pen if needed or if Maeda is ready to return or if another starter is ready to bump him from the minors. Other options include Quintana, Lester, Hill, Andrew Heaney, Jordan Lyles, Urena, and Peralta among others. If we had another 10 million in the budget I would go get another starter with more appeal but we are out of money so the only other option is to trade. then that would create another hole. and of course if i didnt sign Cruz we would have more money for pitching. and that is a real possibility. I think if either Rooker or Larnarch convinced they were ready and could make adjustments then we wouldnt get Cruz. But i think if we are going to contend then we want a strong offense. Gant and Dobnak are our 6th and 7th starters. Total budget is 132.15 million. just a little above the 130 million. and that is before incentives for the new extensions and contracts. Next I will look at making some trades. then i will make one with unrealistic expectations.

I wrote a plan but do not see it above. I did mine early on.

So many teams have money to spend this offseason. I read that Miami, Mariners, Giants, Detroit, and even Cleveland has little money committed to next year and beyond. Knowing this I think the Twins will sign Pineda, and another starter like Matz, Duffy, Smyly. I would like to put Gray in this list but agree he is trending toward staying in Colorado. But someone in the 10-14 million per season range. The third starter will come via trade. I do not expect us to like any third pitcher we sign so i will go with trade for the last starter. but if we do sign a third starter it will be someone like Fiers, Rich Hill again, Lester, Quintana, I wonder if Odorizzi is available in trade? on SS it would be nice to see us sign a good SS. I was hoping we could get someone like Chris Taylor but he is now a known quantity and his price went up with his post season. so I have us either resigning Simmons or signing VIllar The bullpen is a crap shoot of who they will sign. so I wont bother for now. I do think they have a good pen going into next year as is so its not like they have to do anything but if they can sign an upgrade at a value price they will do it. I doubt they will pay market price for anyone in the pen since they have been good at finding value relievers. And if all goes well we extend Buxton. I think this would be a good offseason for us too.

The thing with Shoemaker was that his replacements were all injured. The hope was he could be a smart signing and pitch 25-30 starts averaging between 5-6 innings per start. really though I doubt too many people were expecting much more than 15 starts and 75-80 innings. His potential replacements: Thorpe, Smeltzer, Dobnak, and Duran were all injured much of the year. Even Winder who was ready in September for a few starts had to sit out till next year. We had the depth 6-9 starters but they were all injured. no one talks about that very much. Last offseason I was happy with the Simmons signing and Cruz. Simmons did provide a gold glove defense at SS. Think how much worse our pitching would be without him there. I am disappointed in how much he regressed with the bat. Cruz mashed. I thought Happ and Shoemaker were head scratchers. But i figured Happ would have a 4.00 era and win 13-15 games and pitch close to 160-180 innings. Shoemaker I figured was a wild card and extra depth for a season where our minor leaguers didn't pitch so we would have 6 starters with Dobnak who pitched last year. We could have definitely done better. The question is would these other pitchers come here at around what they signed for elsewhere?

We had those same needs when we signed Donaldson. Just that he was the best improvement available and we allocated the funds there then. Also I wouldn't be surprises if we kept him the 5th year if his contract. Its only 8 million at that point.

Ir we give up a prospect and make it a 3 team trade. Team A gets Donaldson from team B. Team C get a prospect from team B and sends 10 million to offset some salary.. Other players and stuff is used to complete the trade ledger but this is the main components of a trade....

Do the Twins have insurance on Donaldson's s contract? If so we don't lose by keeping him. He stays healthy and Miranda goes up and down and plays all around the diamond and is mentored by a healthy Donaldson. He gets injured and Miranda plays 3rd. Insurance kicks in Twins have a little cash for in season addition fir stretch run. If we value our players more than other teams we should just keep these players. Its not like we are getting an absolute loss. I am still happy we went out and signed a player like Josh Donaldson as it takes away the Pohlad is cheap arguement once and for all. Plus it shows even top talent will come to Minnesota.. Sanyo could be poised for a breakout. I know we say that every year but in the second half he showed more patience and had his best k rate... But there is no bad one year contracts so if its a 1 year overpay I am fine with that. Also would like to see him get to 200 HRs in a Twins uniform.

Our rotation needs help. I don't think giving up a low A flyer would be a huge over pay on someone like Miley. Going into the offseason needing only 2 starters instead of three improves our negotiating leverage significantly. Especially if we resigned Pineda leaving us needing only one more starter. but I am not going to keep crying over it. just wanted to point out that we missed an easy opportunity. Miley could turn into the next Happ for us at his age as well and see his production drop.

Happ was an ok 5th starter until his last 3 starts with the Twins. I mean he wasn't good but he did keep us in enough games to be a .500 pitcher until the end. He wasn't worth 8 million but he wasn't a total sunk cost either. not like Colome was the first month or so of the season when we were drowning as he blew save after save.

Turns out they wanted nothing for him as they put him on waivers so the Cubs could get him and avoid a potential 1 million buyout. but if you look at his stats he was good 2 of the last 3 seasons. he only had what 6 starts in 2020. He was well worth a low a prospect to fill a hole in out rotation that has many.

Tw Twins missed an opportunity to get Wade Miley. He could have been had probably for someone we were going to let go. but at most a low a flyer as the Reds just let him go for nothing. The Cubs got him.....

The Twins have 5 starting pitching prospects at AA and AAA with several more at A ball. I think it would make sense to stagger the three starters so one is gone in 1 year, Pineda can be replaced in 2 years and we have a third starter who can be here for 3 or more years. Plus we want to be able to get some pitching at a low cost so we have more resources for either a SS or for a top pitcher.

so a rotation of Gray, Miley, Pineda, Ober, and Ryan. This is affordable decent rotation where Gray is likely a 3-5 year contract at around 13-16 million per season. Miley has 1 year left at 10 million and Pineda will likely have 2 years at I am guessing 11-13 million per season, Ryan and Ober could be replaced at any time due to injury and ineffectiveness. I say this because we have 5 or 6 top pitching prospects getting close to the Majors and they will need opportunities at some point. Some could get bullpen shots to start but some will earn a rotation spot and it will be nice to have the ability to plug them in to the rotation.... Lets go see how this works on the Twins financial spreadsheet that was provided earlier by Twins daily....

If the Reds exercise Mileys option, I wonder what it would take to acquire him? Would Strottman and a low A flier work? He would cost 10 million and be the type of pitcher we would acquire. This will allow us an open spot in the rotation for one of the arms coming up a spot to claim after next season when Miley is a free agent again.

Cobb could be had on a shorter contract due to age. He is on my list too. As much as we want, The Twins will not play in the top free agent pitchers. I also have Alex Wood, Matz, Gray and Gray, among others.

Andrus at 7 million The A's are paying vs the 18 or so million he will end up getting are 2 different things. I don't know what his defense is like either and that could be a huge negative. especially since we could resign Simmons for around that 7-9 million and he is a huge plus on defense if not a blackhole on offense..... I bet Simmons rebounds some with a better season offensively next year. probably an 85 to 90 OPS type of season. so if we are getting Andrus as part of a salary dump we probably want to make sure he won't kill us as the everyday SS since we wont have a replacement for a while. But if you think he can be a 90 OPS hitter and at least league average defender with speed then.... but I think the package will still require at least one better prospect if not 2.

in 2013 and 2014 The Twins had the first pick right after the drop off in top of the draft talent. So your article should be asking why didnt the Twins tank back then? in 2014 Gordon was the high Floor low ceiling pick who was projected to be able to remain at SS. So if he was a solid SS hitting .270 with 30 2bs and 10-15 HRs with 10-15 SBs it would be a win. He is hitting at that level. It did take a few years longer for him to develop but he is not staying at SS which is the big negative here. in 2013 Kohl Stewart was the consensus pick to take when the Twins drafted him. If only it was in vogue to take someone lower in the draft order to save money and sign another player around this time..... The big miss would be Tyler Jay as the Twins tried to make someone who should be a reliever a starter. But the Twins would make up for that snaffu in the next draft. And based on your examples no one picked well in that draft as your 2 examples aren't great or anything. The 2016 Draft as well as that 2012 draft and 2009 international signing period stand out as the best in team history.

The trade for Oaklands SS and Manea is creative, but You need to include better prospects. Oakland will want 2 top 20 prospects at minimum. maybe a & 4-8 and a 12-15 level prospect and even then I could be off. Manea is valuable. Good guesses on the contracts. They are close to what I would give as well. Though Buxton's will be more of a split contract. Half guaranteed and the rest incentives. not sure how the incentives will break out but you can take a guess. That's half the fun.

Definately a gold glove article. Well written, great examples, nicest videos. My question is would he win the gold glove? If not no worries. If so he was robbed like DJ LaMehieu fly ball to right field.

I agree. I just think the Twins busget is more Pineda, Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, Matz, Hearney.... I don't see us getting a top tier arm unless there is a trade and even then pitching is horded more than other assets. We do have a promising pipeline of starters on the way. This tells me short term contracts of 2 years for the above type of pitchers makes sense. With all of the prospects coming up, I feel like we will have a better cash flow as these starters come off the books and are replaced by minimum earning pitchers, Sano and Donaldson will also be off the books and we have the ability to sign an ace then.